Social media has become embedded into our culture. We use it to share ideas and experiences. Google+, a social media platform, is available to all Google Apps users. There has, however, been hesitation in the deployment of this product in businesses due to the open nature of Google+. Well, businesses asked and businesses received!

Google has announced the ability to restrict Google+ communities within Google+. This means that companies and organizations have the ability to restrict the social media exchange to the employees, staff, and perhaps clients and customers.

The Four Types of Restricted Communities

How to Set up the New Communities

Sign into Google+ and select “Communities” from the sidebar navigation.

Select “Create community” in the top, right corner of the page.

Choose the type of community you would like to create - either “Open within your domain” or “Private in your domain.”

I chose to create a private community, where members need permission to join. Be sure to select whether or not you want this community to appear in searches within your organization, or if you want it to be a top-secret, invite-only community. This is a big day for me; I am leader of the “The Cool Kids” community!

Now you can add the finishing touches to the Community by adding a photo, tagline, and description. And of course, invite some colleagues to join.

Use Cases for Google+ Communities

Other than fulfilling my life-long dream of being a cool-kid, there are numerous use cases for communities to be used in a professional setting. Here are a few examples:

Department communities to post the latest strategies, questions, and events

Company-wide community to stay up-to-date on all announcements and events

Cross-departmental integration to unify a highly-functioning team across multiple departments

Other ways to set restrictions in Google+

First, ensure that Google+ premium features are enabled for your organization.

Click on the “Other Google Services” control.

Click the “Configure premium features” link next to Google+.

Hit the “Enable Google+ premium features” button.

If Google+ premium features are enabled already for your organization, click on “Other Google Services” and then “Google+.” Next, click on “Sharing settings.”

Here, you can choose a default sharing restriction:

Unrestricted - Anyone who can see a post can see a +1 by users in your organization

Restricted - +1 notifications are restricted for your users

If you have a question regarding the topics reviewed in this post, please leave a comment below. For more information about Google+ and your business, check out our previous posts: